By Rabbi Ben Kamin
SAN DIEGO — He was tall, lean, and carried a grim humanity about him. James Arness, handpicked by John Wayne (who had better things to do in 1955), portrayed the signature Marshal Dillon, with dryness and few speeches, for twenty years. Gunsmoke was longest-running network television drama in history and Arness anchored, but never overshadowed, the other major characters.
The recent death of James Arness, at a ripe old age, and far-removed from the conveyed violence and zephyrs of his signature role, is a milestone in entertainment history. Actually a mild and gentle man who was kind and receptive to his fans, Arness was often vocally cognizant of the revolutionary nature of the lawman he portrayed.
Marshal Matt Dillon was fast with his six-shooter but he was also thoughtful—a man who actually wore regret on his face about the gunplay he expertly delivered in his reluctant role of outpost enforcer. He was also vulnerable; one published estimate is that he was shot, knifed, or wounded some 70 times in the course of the western melodrama that began as a radio serial and culminated with several television movies.
I thought he was wonderful and lonely and wished to emulate his restraint and quiet strength. As an immigrant child glued weekly to the older, grainy black-and-white series and then wide-eyed at the transition to one-hour color episodes, Matt Dillon represented the edgy truths of frontier Americana as much as pre-corporate baseball players filled the green spaces of my heroic yearnings.
In the dusty and cruel outpost of historic Dodge City, Marshal Dillon was ambivalent about romance, dutiful about his responsibilities, and often enough, frustrated with his underlings and associates.
Besides his gun, he wore only a star and his trademark, rusty-colored vest was not bulletproof. He had no special powers, psychic or metaphysical. He did not philosophize about the tension between good and evil; I do not recall a single reference to God or theologies in the innumerable episodes I saw and have seen again. There was no clergyman amongst the key characters, which included two successive and steadfast deputies, an irascible but Hippocrates-true town doctor, and a solemn, beauty-marked, somewhat worn-out female saloon owner, Kitty, who clearly loved Marshal Dillon but knew better than to get into the crossfires of his fated career path.
Kitty wept quietly each time Matt was shot or kidnapped or even assumed dead. Like the Marshal, she was minimalist, taciturn, and resigned to the Kansas tumbleweed gods of isolation, denial, and chaos. For exactly that reason, the sexual tension between them was more enlightening than in all the patronizingly fleshy and two-dimensional westerns that preceded or followed Gunsmoke.
I actually submitted a script to the show many years ago that went through several readings before being rejected due to what the managing director at CBS politely called “a surfeit of plots for this season.” That’s okay. I knew there was no way to measure up to the discipline and pluck of Marshal Dillon.
Rest in peace, James Arness. Glad it was the angels who got you, not the bad guys.
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Rabbi Kamin is a freelance writer based in San Diego. He may be contacted at ben.kamin@sdjewishworld.com